A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture
Rafi Segal, Eyal Weizman Verso, NYC. ISBN 1-85984-549-5
Mini-Review by bc
I have just finished reading the book A Civilian Occupation
and it is beyond my abilities to capture its essence in any
way similar to the impact it has had on my conscience,
along with a never-ending contemplation of the realities
for the most part invisible in the .US news media as to
other perspective that remain missing from current events.
There is not one essay that is out of sync with the others,
though all are widely different views of the same situation,
that is the Israeli settlement movement in Palestinian lands.
From mapping techniques to building typologies to Bauhaus
students applying utopian modernism to 20th-21st century
military town planning to most saddening events in human
history due to ideology to mysticism detached from realism
to architectural ethics and social purpose -- there are too
many dimensions to encapsulate a single view of what is
a world otherwise unknown to me, another bystander who
is outside the intimacy of these epic histories and ongoing
struggles -- yet with this work one can no longer look away.
And, it is the right and only way, that the Israeli architectural
community is critiquing itself in such a way that both allows
others to see with some balance yet also sympathy for the
candid portrayal of events from an architectural vantage,
such that there is no denying the claims as they exist, both
in the images, words, photographs, in the book, as well as
in the newspaper, on the radio, on the television, in war.
In effect, it would seem the authors are able to say the un-
sayable, and in doing so, open a realm to begin changes.
A change of perspective, of conscience, of motives, the
book's presentation may have as many different impacts
as the ideas are presented and range within them, yet a
common goal, without doubt, is to acknowledge and also
condemn the use of architecture as a weapon of warfare.
Dual-use architecture in effect turns citizens into soldiers.
And from this long and ongoing development of 'history',
it brings the current settlement movement and its take-
over of Palestinian lands, as a pastoral ideal without
people, into the military directives from the 1970s from
the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, headed by
Ariel Sharon, the present-day Prime Minister of Israel.
The book is in a category all its own- as it ties together
theoretical observation, history, building techniques,
sociology, symbolism, and other approaches to give a
sense of 'place' that is 'displaced' for both the occupiers
and the occupied-- much of it is too difficult to portray
without the context of more extensive definitions, as a
religious sense is a political sense is a planning sense,
though how to convey the godly superiority of those atop
mountains versus those viewed as less than equal is a
question that has a very long history, and as has been
shown in the past, ignorant ill intent aids in great perils.
IF architecture is part of the problem, it so too could be
part of the solution. That is a naive belief, especially if
not up-close to the realities. Yet to hear of 'two' places,
one relying on the other to exist, one of squalor and an-
another of militarized, subsidized, ideal family living
with paved roads while others have to walk miles on
dirt roads every day to get to work or run errands, and
live in intense compaction (from what was shown) vs.
an ideal town planning and city planning mechanism,
even today with headlines of greater investments to
be made in the West Bank by Sharon as he pulls out
of the Gaza Strip, it is hard to fathom this control over
the land in anything but a purely military context. And
there is no mistaking the building in these zones as a
breach of international treaties of civilian occupation.
One's heart goes out to the tragedy that lost chances,
maybe by limitations of imagination or even will to
find a peaceful resolution and peaceful revolution of
relationships- to build security through friendships
and mutual interests-- to where things are today, two
worlds against one another, in an ideological relief.
The heart grows heavier and heavier with each and
every page, image, memory, friendships, each death,
each assassination-- architecture provides this stage.
While Virilio was mentioned it seems also a situation
of Simulcra/Simulcrum by Baudrillard though such a
matter would need to explored in another context.
And it is for this reason, that A Civilian Occupation as
a work of architectural conscience applicable to all
environments in one way or another, and for the .US
in probably the most important correspondence, that
architectural ideas without checks and balances for
their effects could have outcomes that arise from the
root causes of a modern ideology run amok, itself a
crude metaphysics if not respected and also rejected
so to appreciate what will never fit into a singular lens.
If there was one book to teach as a general text for
the meaning and lessons of architecture in the world
today, this is it. It is not just technology, nor aesthetics,
nor an architect, nor even a one-sided cultural view--
it is a complex, reasoned, persuasive and compelling
call to architectural conscience to recognize how the
discipline is being subverted for ends otherworldy, in
the name of the divine, while casting humanity aside.
Yet, it would be hard to imagine the architectural
establishment that exists today in the schools and
in the profession to know how to 'teach' this text--
as it is life. It is balanced, respectful, and yet hard-
hitting to questioning the role of architecture as an
unwitting or deviant accomplice in a conquering of
space, and total ownership of both place and mind.
It really begs the question: What does the AIA think
of the settlements? It is an important question and
if they are a professional organization they should
be required to reply, with their status, upon the use
and abuse of architecture against its very purpose.
There is no easy answer, nor does theory proscribe
solutions, and what is both a relief yet also a terror
in itself is the position this places complex cultural
interactions, in the realm of psychologies and also
languages-- to cope with insufficient information,
and likely some total bias, in any classroom, this
to include teachers-- and yet the discussions them-
selves could provide the beginning, as does the
book itself for the dialogue within architecture, to
consider the options that architecture can provide
to such a situation, in its various degrees of change.
One of the greatest fears of reading this work was
my own view of events, if they would be forever
changed and even 'unsettled' to such a degree
that balance is impossible and reason is lost to
some view that forgets another to gain its power.
In essence, there is a worry that the issues of the
use and abuse of architecture by Israel are, may
be considered, by default, anti-semitic. I write this
as a result of the confidence one can retain their
love for people, while feeling less so about the
failures of newly-constructed states to do justice
in representing their people without the tragedy
of judgment which, when things do change, will
provide a place more like those people whose
minds inhabit a place that, like a dream, can be
shared in some mutual appreciation and respect.
To learn, listen, and consider things anew again.
That the .US and .IL are so closely tied together
today in their politics and culture is not, largely,
a coincidence either, it would seem- as values
of these settlements are those of the .US in its
current approach to issues across the board.
It may be a connection between a moral belief
as a most suitable method for political planning.
Whatever it is, it is ideological and insufficient
to face any of the questions raised in this book.
Architecture needs to transcend the privatized
view of itself, as does the architecture, in order
to serve goals larger than the world defined by
an individual self, whether by race, religion, or
cultural creed. There is a public that could be a
shared space that is instead a deadly exchange
of explosions volleyed back and forth, and pain
reminiscent of the scariest of movies I saw as a
young child, by Walt Disney, about Pinnochio
and some island where children were turned
into donkey-slaves-- that terrifying fear that is a
memory of such a moral oppression resurfaced
in the back of the mind when reading of an ideal
landscape being sold with glossy brochures, to
look beyond the suffering to absorb the Utopian.
If someone actually had the authority, like an
accreditation institution (in the .US, possibly), all
graduating students and architectural students of
all grades should be writing about this book, they
should be reading it and discussing it, and also
considering options for what they, as the future
architects of this world, are going to do about it.
The book by Segal and Weizman provides the
opening necessary to critical questioning that
is often cast out of the educational system today.
This is a historical work, not in the sense that it
is about the past, it is a living unfolding history
in which architecture is playing the provocateur
upon the environment and its inhabitants, which
in itself has plenty of histories that proceed it with
examples of what happens when this happens,
and likely, also, what can be done to change the
predictable outcomes (total war) now underway.
This is an action of architectural conscience and
architects can and should do something to take
back control over the architecture, to make it very
loudly and clearly known what the position of all
professional and lay communities are on these
'developments' -- and to draw a line which is in-
itself, morally and ethically unambiguous when
it comes to the role of architects to serve public
interests-- not one public at the cost of another.
A call to use developments for peaceful change
should be implemented, and to involve students
and planners and designers to question what is
occurring in the settlements, and how they may
be transformed into resources for building peace.
One of the encouraging things to read which was
also instantly thought of upon reading the book
was if the settlements could be handed-over to
the people of .PA and not destroyed-- which is
an option in the current Gaza pullout, with some
conditions of course. Yet, also to see the houses
of Palestinians, their rooftops look as if there are
a lot of solar panels for hot-water heating, and
also possibly some power and satellite. What if
infrastructural investments could build upon this
self-reliance and offer any assistance to build
upon these technologies in a way unique to the
.PA peoples, to allow the 'Arab' nature of city-
planning as is mentioned as being of a longer
generational development versus the instant
city, build from what is there. If there is a need
for a strong sustainable infrastructure of some
kind, it could provide a basis for economic and
other changes which could aid in developing
a strong identity of commonality in statehood,
again, through architecture and with architects.
IN a sense, or better said, in a deeply felt belief
which may contradict the logic of war by sheer
stubbornness that people can beat bureaucracy
and change systems to work for their interests,
and to constantly work at refining this to better
ends for all people-- that may be a central task
of representative government, to keep things in
check, and why the .US is having such trouble
now, too-- that like somebody probably said in
some way in some past and future day, love
has no boundaries. Nor does pain, it seems.
Though different kinds, something is very wrong
and needs to be dealt with. Architecture has an
important and central role in re-occupying place
with people, not ideologies run amok but with a
shared beauty, a shared bounty, and a shared
vision in which all can participate in building.
Architects of the world must consider their positions
on these settlement patterns of development, and
what they are or are not doing to change outcomes,
as they are uniquely capable of offering a realistic
critique of the abuses that are more than obvious,
at the same time the complexities and a cultural
context which reinforces collaboration of ideas
with skills to move the largest constructions on
the Earth in a way that serves the cause of life.
Architecture has a civic purpose, and this is it.
--
brian thomas carroll: research-design-development
architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
Rafi Segal, Eyal Weizman Verso, NYC. ISBN 1-85984-549-5
Mini-Review by bc
I have just finished reading the book A Civilian Occupation
and it is beyond my abilities to capture its essence in any
way similar to the impact it has had on my conscience,
along with a never-ending contemplation of the realities
for the most part invisible in the .US news media as to
other perspective that remain missing from current events.
There is not one essay that is out of sync with the others,
though all are widely different views of the same situation,
that is the Israeli settlement movement in Palestinian lands.
From mapping techniques to building typologies to Bauhaus
students applying utopian modernism to 20th-21st century
military town planning to most saddening events in human
history due to ideology to mysticism detached from realism
to architectural ethics and social purpose -- there are too
many dimensions to encapsulate a single view of what is
a world otherwise unknown to me, another bystander who
is outside the intimacy of these epic histories and ongoing
struggles -- yet with this work one can no longer look away.
And, it is the right and only way, that the Israeli architectural
community is critiquing itself in such a way that both allows
others to see with some balance yet also sympathy for the
candid portrayal of events from an architectural vantage,
such that there is no denying the claims as they exist, both
in the images, words, photographs, in the book, as well as
in the newspaper, on the radio, on the television, in war.
In effect, it would seem the authors are able to say the un-
sayable, and in doing so, open a realm to begin changes.
A change of perspective, of conscience, of motives, the
book's presentation may have as many different impacts
as the ideas are presented and range within them, yet a
common goal, without doubt, is to acknowledge and also
condemn the use of architecture as a weapon of warfare.
Dual-use architecture in effect turns citizens into soldiers.
And from this long and ongoing development of 'history',
it brings the current settlement movement and its take-
over of Palestinian lands, as a pastoral ideal without
people, into the military directives from the 1970s from
the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, headed by
Ariel Sharon, the present-day Prime Minister of Israel.
The book is in a category all its own- as it ties together
theoretical observation, history, building techniques,
sociology, symbolism, and other approaches to give a
sense of 'place' that is 'displaced' for both the occupiers
and the occupied-- much of it is too difficult to portray
without the context of more extensive definitions, as a
religious sense is a political sense is a planning sense,
though how to convey the godly superiority of those atop
mountains versus those viewed as less than equal is a
question that has a very long history, and as has been
shown in the past, ignorant ill intent aids in great perils.
IF architecture is part of the problem, it so too could be
part of the solution. That is a naive belief, especially if
not up-close to the realities. Yet to hear of 'two' places,
one relying on the other to exist, one of squalor and an-
another of militarized, subsidized, ideal family living
with paved roads while others have to walk miles on
dirt roads every day to get to work or run errands, and
live in intense compaction (from what was shown) vs.
an ideal town planning and city planning mechanism,
even today with headlines of greater investments to
be made in the West Bank by Sharon as he pulls out
of the Gaza Strip, it is hard to fathom this control over
the land in anything but a purely military context. And
there is no mistaking the building in these zones as a
breach of international treaties of civilian occupation.
One's heart goes out to the tragedy that lost chances,
maybe by limitations of imagination or even will to
find a peaceful resolution and peaceful revolution of
relationships- to build security through friendships
and mutual interests-- to where things are today, two
worlds against one another, in an ideological relief.
The heart grows heavier and heavier with each and
every page, image, memory, friendships, each death,
each assassination-- architecture provides this stage.
While Virilio was mentioned it seems also a situation
of Simulcra/Simulcrum by Baudrillard though such a
matter would need to explored in another context.
And it is for this reason, that A Civilian Occupation as
a work of architectural conscience applicable to all
environments in one way or another, and for the .US
in probably the most important correspondence, that
architectural ideas without checks and balances for
their effects could have outcomes that arise from the
root causes of a modern ideology run amok, itself a
crude metaphysics if not respected and also rejected
so to appreciate what will never fit into a singular lens.
If there was one book to teach as a general text for
the meaning and lessons of architecture in the world
today, this is it. It is not just technology, nor aesthetics,
nor an architect, nor even a one-sided cultural view--
it is a complex, reasoned, persuasive and compelling
call to architectural conscience to recognize how the
discipline is being subverted for ends otherworldy, in
the name of the divine, while casting humanity aside.
Yet, it would be hard to imagine the architectural
establishment that exists today in the schools and
in the profession to know how to 'teach' this text--
as it is life. It is balanced, respectful, and yet hard-
hitting to questioning the role of architecture as an
unwitting or deviant accomplice in a conquering of
space, and total ownership of both place and mind.
It really begs the question: What does the AIA think
of the settlements? It is an important question and
if they are a professional organization they should
be required to reply, with their status, upon the use
and abuse of architecture against its very purpose.
There is no easy answer, nor does theory proscribe
solutions, and what is both a relief yet also a terror
in itself is the position this places complex cultural
interactions, in the realm of psychologies and also
languages-- to cope with insufficient information,
and likely some total bias, in any classroom, this
to include teachers-- and yet the discussions them-
selves could provide the beginning, as does the
book itself for the dialogue within architecture, to
consider the options that architecture can provide
to such a situation, in its various degrees of change.
One of the greatest fears of reading this work was
my own view of events, if they would be forever
changed and even 'unsettled' to such a degree
that balance is impossible and reason is lost to
some view that forgets another to gain its power.
In essence, there is a worry that the issues of the
use and abuse of architecture by Israel are, may
be considered, by default, anti-semitic. I write this
as a result of the confidence one can retain their
love for people, while feeling less so about the
failures of newly-constructed states to do justice
in representing their people without the tragedy
of judgment which, when things do change, will
provide a place more like those people whose
minds inhabit a place that, like a dream, can be
shared in some mutual appreciation and respect.
To learn, listen, and consider things anew again.
That the .US and .IL are so closely tied together
today in their politics and culture is not, largely,
a coincidence either, it would seem- as values
of these settlements are those of the .US in its
current approach to issues across the board.
It may be a connection between a moral belief
as a most suitable method for political planning.
Whatever it is, it is ideological and insufficient
to face any of the questions raised in this book.
Architecture needs to transcend the privatized
view of itself, as does the architecture, in order
to serve goals larger than the world defined by
an individual self, whether by race, religion, or
cultural creed. There is a public that could be a
shared space that is instead a deadly exchange
of explosions volleyed back and forth, and pain
reminiscent of the scariest of movies I saw as a
young child, by Walt Disney, about Pinnochio
and some island where children were turned
into donkey-slaves-- that terrifying fear that is a
memory of such a moral oppression resurfaced
in the back of the mind when reading of an ideal
landscape being sold with glossy brochures, to
look beyond the suffering to absorb the Utopian.
If someone actually had the authority, like an
accreditation institution (in the .US, possibly), all
graduating students and architectural students of
all grades should be writing about this book, they
should be reading it and discussing it, and also
considering options for what they, as the future
architects of this world, are going to do about it.
The book by Segal and Weizman provides the
opening necessary to critical questioning that
is often cast out of the educational system today.
This is a historical work, not in the sense that it
is about the past, it is a living unfolding history
in which architecture is playing the provocateur
upon the environment and its inhabitants, which
in itself has plenty of histories that proceed it with
examples of what happens when this happens,
and likely, also, what can be done to change the
predictable outcomes (total war) now underway.
This is an action of architectural conscience and
architects can and should do something to take
back control over the architecture, to make it very
loudly and clearly known what the position of all
professional and lay communities are on these
'developments' -- and to draw a line which is in-
itself, morally and ethically unambiguous when
it comes to the role of architects to serve public
interests-- not one public at the cost of another.
A call to use developments for peaceful change
should be implemented, and to involve students
and planners and designers to question what is
occurring in the settlements, and how they may
be transformed into resources for building peace.
One of the encouraging things to read which was
also instantly thought of upon reading the book
was if the settlements could be handed-over to
the people of .PA and not destroyed-- which is
an option in the current Gaza pullout, with some
conditions of course. Yet, also to see the houses
of Palestinians, their rooftops look as if there are
a lot of solar panels for hot-water heating, and
also possibly some power and satellite. What if
infrastructural investments could build upon this
self-reliance and offer any assistance to build
upon these technologies in a way unique to the
.PA peoples, to allow the 'Arab' nature of city-
planning as is mentioned as being of a longer
generational development versus the instant
city, build from what is there. If there is a need
for a strong sustainable infrastructure of some
kind, it could provide a basis for economic and
other changes which could aid in developing
a strong identity of commonality in statehood,
again, through architecture and with architects.
IN a sense, or better said, in a deeply felt belief
which may contradict the logic of war by sheer
stubbornness that people can beat bureaucracy
and change systems to work for their interests,
and to constantly work at refining this to better
ends for all people-- that may be a central task
of representative government, to keep things in
check, and why the .US is having such trouble
now, too-- that like somebody probably said in
some way in some past and future day, love
has no boundaries. Nor does pain, it seems.
Though different kinds, something is very wrong
and needs to be dealt with. Architecture has an
important and central role in re-occupying place
with people, not ideologies run amok but with a
shared beauty, a shared bounty, and a shared
vision in which all can participate in building.
Architects of the world must consider their positions
on these settlement patterns of development, and
what they are or are not doing to change outcomes,
as they are uniquely capable of offering a realistic
critique of the abuses that are more than obvious,
at the same time the complexities and a cultural
context which reinforces collaboration of ideas
with skills to move the largest constructions on
the Earth in a way that serves the cause of life.
Architecture has a civic purpose, and this is it.
--
brian thomas carroll: research-design-development
architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html